Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Where I Am

Over the past few weeks, as my home fills will young people whose desire is for a deeper understanding of God's word, the message has changed each week, yet returns to one particular point: be satisfied with with where I am. A wonderfully loving wife and four outgoing, physically abled children fill my suburban home in a neighborhood cul-de-sac populated by friendly neighbors. My job allows me enough to pay for what we have had and what we have now.

I am humbled when I spend times with friends whose wives and walked out on them, leaving children with no mother to love on them. Then there are wives whose husbands have abandoned them and the kids, even if he remains in the house. There are dear parents of children with special needs that require incredible amounts of time for care and the financial strain it places on them is immense. Some are caring for their aging parents and the parent don't even recognize their own children. I hurt for my neighbors and and friends battling cancer, leukemia, crones, lupus and so forth.

There are those I know and love that somehow get by with so little that I wonder how God does it. Some I know and see everyday work so hard and put in so much time to do their mission in life that it would seem they couldn't possibly have any joy. Yet they do.

Two years ago I spent seven days walking around the New Mexico wilderness, sleeping on the ground, carrying my necessities on my back, and dodging rattlesnakes. It was a joy. I wondered how different it was for me then, compared to someone in Pakistan or Northern Africa. On other trips I've been so soaked from rain I've wondered who in Brazil or Ecuador I could relate to. When my mother died and I felt that loss, how was it that there was peace and comfort?

There are many people in my life that God has so graciously put into my life to teach me the joy I should have. Not any joy I should have because of the things I have, or even the people in my life; but the joy I should have because God has put me where I am with my abilities and disabilities, my things and my empty pockets, the quiet, easy days and the noisy, chaotic, sleepless nights.

I do realize how good I have it in the eyes of some, and also how little I have in the eyes of a few. God has blessed me, and I know how quick it can all disappear. Job in the Old Testament had it all, and it was all taken away, and he was left with nothing except, it all. What God gives us here on this planet is nothing but tools to glorify Him. We should us it for that purpose. It can all be gone, but if we have Christ, we're left still with it all. Hope is what we have. An eternal inheritance is the promise and it will not fade, nor rot, nor be used up. We're only here for a little while, and this is where I am.

No comments:

Post a Comment